Ealing
Summary
After noticing housing problems affecting their congregations, St Barnabas and Christ the Saviour started a campaign about affordable housing. When the churches realised that secure housing was a real issue, they talked with members of their congregation to build up a picture of what wasn’t working, running a ‘listening campaign’. Through this, they spoke to hundreds of people within their congregations and the wider Ealing community, each for between thirty minutes and an hour.
Both churches are members of Citizens UK. Citizens is an alliance of local community institutions – faith groups, schools, colleges and other third sector organisations – who work together for their common good, for the people they represent and for their community. Citizens advocates ‘community organising’ – campaigning based on one-to-one conversations which can reveal the problems facing the community.
When local elections came in 2018, they asked the other Citizens institutions to work to fix these problems. Together, they represented a lot of people in the area, and their institutions are integral to the local community. A working group wrote a list of ‘asks’ for the candidates to be leader of the council, based on their conversations and backed up with further research. The demands were presented at an assembly where members of their institutions told their stories. The power of these stories and the coalition meant that all the candidates agreed to the demands, and they are now being delivered. The asks were to:
Push developers to provide 50% affordable housing on all new developments in the borough
Extend selective landlord licensing across the whole borough
Run renters’ rights workshops
Identify a piece of land on which 50 Community Land Trust houses could be built
Background
The housing crisis is evident in several ways in Ealing. Many people are struggling to pay the high rent prices – it’s a desirable area, but workers essential to the life of the area are often on low wages or have insecure jobs. This forces families into cramped accommodation. Few can dream of buying a house to feel secure in the area which they call home. Even those able to buy often have to work long, unsociable hours to pay the mortgage. This also leads to hidden homelessness, with significant sofa surfing. However, the congregations in both churches seem comfortable ‘on the surface’, and many of these issues only came out once they started a concerted effort to listen.
Justin Dodd, the vicar of St Barnabas, explained that community organising is a natural extension of the churches’ mission – combining direct services such as night shelters with ‘dealing with the systemic issue’. Jackie Ashmenall, a member of Christ the Saviour, emphasised that churches also bring a unique perspective: ‘I don’t leave my faith outside the door’ when meeting with politicians.
Impact
The first three asks have already been delivered. The CLT land has been identified, and Ealing Citizens is now working with partners to deliver the homes.
At the beginning of the campaign, Ealing Citizens didn’t exist. The relationships built up during the affordable housing campaign haved led to a formal grouping, which has since campaigned on various issues.
It’s also had a significant impact on the internal culture of the churches, fostering a more relational and outward looking ethos, building leaders and enabling the clergy to be more effective in mission and change management.
Christ the Saviour see the culture they built as part of the reason that they have been able to have an effective conversation on the ordination of women.
At St Barnabas, the work has brought different groups together who would usually not interact.
Jackie explained that ‘I’ve always felt that I didn’t have a voice, but when I [started campaigning] it just grew’.
Jackie is also proud that their campaign ‘has reached a point where people are talking about it now’ – locally and nationally.
What do you need?
They believe that this work is relatively easy for churches.
As Jackie suggested, ‘churches, whether large or small, have a link into the community’ and also the power to make change.
They also highlight that churches have a ‘ready-made community’ which makes it ‘quite easy for us to start mini-listening campaigns’.
They say that membership of Citizens UK has allowed them to ‘punch way above our weight’, providing access to training and a shared organiser.
Personnel and time
‘I’ve always felt that I didn’t have a voice, but when I came to be a community organiser it just grew because I was given a seat at the table with the power-makers’ – Jackie Ashmenall, Christ the Saviour.
They emphasise that you don’t need particular skills – the process often reveals them.
Revd Justin Dodd, the vicar at St Barnabas, suggests that when looking for volunteers, it’s best to ‘look for the interesting people on the edges’.
A listening campaign can take several months, but it doesn’t have to be too intense.
‘The more conversations you have, the more you start to pick up certain things’ – Jackie Ashmenall, Christ the Saviour.
It can be a considerable time commitment if you want it to be, but ‘there’s no hard or fast rule’ as campaigns can often progress slowly but successfully.
Their work is unusually focused in a small number of people, but community organising is usually done by a larger group contributing less each.
At one point Jackie decided to conduct several one-to-one conversations every week.
Finances
Membership of Citizens UK costs a church between £1,000 and £2000 a year.
Tips
‘It’s not just about doing stuff externally, it’s about a culture of church’ – Revd Justin Dodd, vicar at St Barnabas.
If you want more information on running campaigns, see our more detailed guide.
Don’t just ask what people need, but also what powers you have – what can your lobbying change at a local level? Focus your efforts there. As Justin explained, ‘it’s got to be winnable’.
Don’t accept just anything. They were originally offered land outside their area. They are glad that they turned this down, as it didn’t meet the need, and they didn’t have community links there. By holding out, they got something more appropriate.
Jackie said that their success was because ‘we’re not a pressure group’. She suggests that others also place the emphasis on building relationships, as being confrontational is less effective. As trust is built, progress gets easier.
Always make sure you’re speaking to the right person in an organisation, especially councils where the balance of power can be confusing. At the same time, don’t rely on just one person as a link, as this means that relationships will have to be rebuilt if and when they move on.
At every church, there will be some people who are against the church getting ‘involved in politics’. They suggest that the way to get them on board with the campaign is to look for what they care about and how this can be linked to the campaign.
People listen to bishops. Getting the Bishop of London along to one of their campaign events really helped to get the politicians interested, so get important people from your denomination involved if possible.
They say that the biggest challenge is also what makes community organising wonderful – you’re working with a wide group of people.
